St Petersburg did not grow up like other towns.
Neither commerce nor geopolitics can
account for its development.
Rather it was built as a work of art…
Orlando Figes
"Natasha's Dance"
…and that work of art can still be admired today, some 300 years since Peter the Great decided to build a tipically "European" capital to rival Amsterdam and Paris. Founded in 1703 by Peter the Great as a "Gateway to Europe", St Petersburg combines its fascinating Russian heritage with a distinctly European outlook. St Petersburg is also a city of rivers and canals - therefore often called the Venice of the North - of endless twilights during the famous White Nights in June and July, of golden autumns and bright snowy winters.
  
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